SAN DIEGO - Opening the 2024-25 season with three games at Steve Fisher Court at Viejas Arena, the San Diego State Aztecs make their first foray to another venue facing Creighton in the first of three games at the Players Era Festival at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
OFF THE BOUNCE
The Aztecs and Bluejays are meeting for the 10th time, with the last four matchups coming on a neutral court. Creighton leads the series 5-4, but in the last four, San Diego State has a 3-1 advantage. The most recent meeting, on March 26, 2023, in a Elite Eight game in Louisville, Ky., saw SDSU come away with a 57-56 victory and a spot in that year’s NCAA Tournament Final Four.
Brian Dutcher, as San Diego State head coach, is 2-1 against Creighton, with an average margin of victory of 16.0 points, while the loss was by three points in overtime (72-69) in the first round of the 2022 NCAA Tournament in Fort Worth, Texas.
The Aztecs enter today’s game coming off an 80-67 loss to No. 3 Gonzaga last Monday night. It was just the sixth time the two most dominant men’s basketball programs on the West Coast have met and the series has been split 3-3. The Aztecs held Gonzaga to 15.5 points below its season average entering in the game and the 80 points allowed are the fewest the Bulldogs have scored this season.
In the Gonzaga game Magoon Gwath blocked a season-high 5 shots, has a total of 12 in three games which is an SDSU record to start a career, and he ranks No. 1 in the nation in blocks per game and is No. 2 in KenPom’s block percentage (24.0).
Despite the roster turnover, San Diego State ranks No. 198 in DI experience at 1.69 years, the Aztecs are once again trending as an elite defensive team. Through the games of Nov. 21, according to KenPom, SDSU is rated 19th in 2-point percentage defense (40.3), 4th in block percentage (23.6), 21st in adjusted defensive efficiency (94.6), and 43rd in effective field goal percentage defense (43.6).
San Diego State, which in 2023-24 reached the Mountain West Tournament championship game for the seventh time in head coach Brian Dutcher’s seven seasons, looks for its unprecedented 17th Mountain West men’s basketball title. Entering the 2024-25 season, San Diego State has won nine regular season and seven Mountain West tournament titles, the most of any program that has been a member of the league.
Following SDSU’s 67-80 loss to Gonzaga at Steve Fisher Court, Brian Dutcher fell to 14-11 vs. top 25 teams in his now eighth season leading the Aztecs. He is still the only Aztec head coach with a winning record against top 25 opposition. It was the first loss for Dutcher at home against a top 25 team. SDSU is now 6-1 against top 25 opponents at Viejas Arena.
Remarkably, at 13 points (67-80), the Gonzaga defeat matched the second-largest margin of defeat for the Aztecs in a home game since the 2007-08 season. The only larger defeat at home for SDSU over the last 16-plus seasons was a 21-point loss to Brown on Dec. 29, 2018 (L, 82-61). San Diego State has two other 13-point home losses over that span, both against nationally ranked schools (L, 80-67, to No. 7 Brigham Young on Feb. 26, 2011, and L, 70-57, to No. 2 Kansas on Dec. 22, 2015).
At the Mountain West Media Day in Las Vegas, by a vote of media members who regularly cover the league, Aztec senior guard Reese Waters and freshman forward Pharaoh Compton were named Preseason All-Mountain West and Preseason Freshman of the Year, respectively. Waters returns as the team’s leading scorer, rebounder and assists man, but is expected to be out until early January. Compton was the No. 80 rated player in the nation and is the first top 100 signee since Jer’Vaughn Johnson, ranked No. 26 nationally, signed in 2005.
Today’s game is between two foes who on a neutral court are very familiar with each other...,
San Diego State owns a 136-35 record (79.5 percent) since the start of the 2019-20 campaign, the third best winning percentage in the nation. Gonzaga is 153-21 (87.9 percent) and owns the top win percentage since the start of the 2019-20 campaign. The other team in the top three is Houston (151-28, 84.4 percent) which slots in at No. 2.
Through San Diego State’s first three games, the Aztec defense is already in regular-season form. SDSU limited UC San Diego, Occidental and Gonzaga to less than 35.0 percent shooting from the floor (.347, 61-of 176), The Aztecs, since the start of the Fisher/Dutcher era, has held a non-conference opponent to 35.0 percent shooting or less from the field 91 times and in those games the Aztecs are 87-4. SDSU has blocked 25 shots so far (8.3 blocks per game - No. 2 nationally), led by freshman Magoon Gwath and his 12 rejections. Gwath leads the nation in blocked shots per game (4.0).
With its Occidental win two Tuesdays ago, San Diego State improved to 102-7 in the Brian Dutcher era, when it limits its opponent to 60 or fewer points. Overall, the Aztecs have won 29 straight when holding the opposition to 60 points or less and when it’s done on Steve Fisher Court, in the same time frame, SDSU is 62-1.
Players who distinguished themselves against Occidental, include Magoon Gwath who became just the second Aztec to record at least 15 points, 4 blocks and 2 three-pointers in the same game since the 1999-00 season. BJ Davis joined teammate Miles Byrd as the only Aztecs since the 2019-20 season to record at least 15 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists and 5 steals in the same game. Wayne McKinney III reached double figures in scoring just 5:36 into the game, accounting for 11 points on 4-for-4 shooting, including 3-for-3 from three-point range.
In the season opener against UC San Diego, sophomore guard Miles Byrd, in his first career start, became just the second player in NCAA Division I basketball over the last 10 seasons (since 2014-15) to record at least 20 points, 8 rebounds, 5 steals and 4 blocks in the same game. He’s also the first Aztec since at least 1996-97 with that stat line.
Brian Dutcher is in his eighth season as San Diego State’s head coach and his 26th season on the Aztec sidelines. In his seven-plus seasons as head coach, he has led the Aztecs to five conference titles, seven Mountain West championship game appearances, a 179-58 overall record and 92-32 mark in league games, has been named the national coach of the year, twice the Mountain West Conference Coach of the Year and led this team to back-to-back Sweet 16s as well as a run to the 2023 NCAA national championship game.